Review: Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight
It’s been over 20 years now since the release of the PlayStation 2 classic LEGO Star Wars, the first in a series of 27 distinct LEGO adventure games based on existing properties. LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is the fourth LEGO Batman game, and the eighth LEGO game to feature Batman in some capacity. It would be reasonable to question what’s left to do with this series.
As it turns out, the answer is fairly straightforward, and it’s right there in the name: this is a game about Batman’s legacy. It’s a cohesive, huge celebration of the hero’s history, especially in film. The plot of Legacy of the Dark Knight expertly smooshes together different continuities and backstories into a single tale, parodying every version of Batman at once while still, quite sincerely, reveling in the parts of Batman that people like.
If you’ve played previous LEGO games, a lot of this one will feel familiar. You’re exploring large environments, smashing up every object in sight to collect studs that can eventually be spent on new cosmetic items; you’re engaging in easy, kid-friendly combat and using a handful of tools to solve easy puzzles; you’re switching between two characters during missions and periodically enjoying cutscenes that poke gentle fun at the game’s subject. So far, so familiar, and as much as this game leans in on remixing Batman’s past, anyone who has played previous LEGO games will occasionally find themselves experiencing deja vu.
But LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight makes one big central choice to revitalise the series – although ironically, that choice is to borrow a lot of its systems from another game series. Developer Traveller’s Tales was assisted in development by Rocksteady Games, the team behind the hugely popular Arkham trilogy (Asylum, City, Knight), and many of LEGO Batman‘s combat techniques and movement controls are taken directly from that series. This is a kid-friendly take on the Arkham series, with more goofy humour and less horror and violence.
Once you unlock his gliding ability, controlling Batman is a delight. While you can drive the Batmobile (and many other cars) through the streets of Gotham, I preferred to whip around the city with my grapple and cape, flying high and swooping down whenever I saw a citizen in peril or a collectable worth nabbing. Once in combat, you can dodge and parry attacks with ease, slipping between enemies to build up your combo meter while hurling Batarangs around to stun enemies.
This is fundamentally a game made for kids to enjoy, but if you buy it for a little person in your life, you can play it with them. The game has couch co-op, so you can play together through most of the game’s missions. Some of the jokes in the game will definitely go over kids’ heads – there are a few unexpected movie references in here that surprised and delighted me – but no matter how familiar you are with the caped crusader, this goofy weirdo version of him here is amusing. He’s not quite as funny as he is in the LEGO movies, but if you can see Batman step onto a dance floor and proclaim “this is how Batman begins… to dance!” without cracking a smile, you’re made of stronger stuff than me.
As with all LEGO games, this one is massive. If you want to go deep, unlocking everything, it’ll keep you going for months; if you just want to play through to the end, exploring Gotham and periodically whispering “I’m Batman” to yourself, it’ll still take you a while. If you – like me – feel compelled to destroy every item you encounter, watching the bricks tumble as you smash up a room, it’ll make the game feel slow at times. But that’s a testament to how well-constructed this thing is: everything shatters like real LEGO, and it’s always satisfying.This is the most visually sophisticated LEGO game we’ve ever seen, and despite a few technical hiccups here and there, Gotham – always rendered at night, since Batman never comes out during the day – is stunning.
These licensed LEGO games are rarely the deepest experiences, and LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight, despite having more involved combat (and even some stealth sequences), has clearly been built to please audiences of all different skill levels. But it’s also got something for every sort of Batman fan, whether you loved the old Adam West show, Nolan’s trilogy, the 90s animated series, or many of his bigger comic runs. Part of Batman’s enduring popularity is that the character works if you take him very seriously, or if you crank the silliness right up – and while LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is at the silly end of the spectrum, it’s made with enough love to remind you why you took Batman seriously in the first place.
LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is available on PC, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5 and is coming to Switch 2 in September. A review copy for PlayStation 5 was provided by the publisher.
James O’Connor has been writing about games since 2008. He is the author of Untitled Goose Game for Boss Fight Books.
